A man has played Deftones and System Of A Down songs on guitar while undergoing brain surgery.
As reported by wsvn.com professional guitarist Christian Nolen played guitar while having a tumor removed from his brain. His choice of heavy bands for this almost unfathomable feat was alt-metal demigods Deftones and Armenian-American nu-metal titans System Of A Down.
Nolen performed songs from the two metal icons while under the knife at the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center for a procedure called an awake craniotomy. Incredibly, the operation requires the removal of part of the skull so that the brain tumour can be accessed, making the prospect of someone playing guitar during those circumstances even wilder to visualise.
Dr. Ricardo Komotar, the head neurosurgeon at The University of Miami's Brain Tumor Program explained to WSVN that Nolen being awake for parts of the two-hour surgery is actually an important part of the process.
"These types of tumours, if you don’t have the ability to remove the tumour with the patient awake, actually become much
more dangerous. Having the patient awake and playing the guitar while we take out the tumour allows us to be as aggressive as possible, yet still maintain his quality of life and his manual dexterity."
Nolen also spoke to the station, revealing how it felt to perform some of his favourite songs on an operating bed, while missing a portion of his skull, with a team of surgeons and nurses poking around his brain.
"It was just like out of this world, like, to just like wake up and like have people actively working inside of your head. It’s kind of an insane feeling.”
Watch the full interview segment, including footage of Nolen playing guitar mid-surgery, below.
Keen on more Deftones guitar-playing content? Deftones guitarist and alt-metal maestro, Stephen Carpenter uploaded a playthrough video for the song Radiant City lifted off Deftones 2020 record Ohms. Watch Carpenter rip through the banger on a nine-string guitar in the comfort of the Deftones tour bus below.
One of our 10 Very Best Albums of 2020, Ohms is heavy, lush and dense all at the same time, it's one of those albums that grows with each listen and rewards those who are willing to give it the proper attention it deserves.
Watch the video for the title track below.
Melbourne visual artist Callum Preston has been involved with countless local projects and exhibitions and he teamed up with Maniacs to create his own spin on the artwork from Ohms! Preston had a chat with both frontman Chino Moreno and the band's longtime artist Frank Maddocks about the art direction for Ohms, as well as showing off his own one-of-a-kind Ohms lightbox. The video shows off Callum's creation process, revealing the final product towards the end of the video and winning gets the seal of approval from both Frank and Chino in the process - check it out below:
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